Category Archives: SaaS

The Next Cloud Contender?

Lunacloud is a European cloud computing provider and a major player in the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) market.

Founded in 2011, it has rapidly expanded into this dynamic industry and become a prominent competitor. Most people in the industry were unaware of Lunacloud until December of 2012, when a CloudSpecs performance report showed that Lunacloud outperformed Amazon and Rackspace in RAM performance, DISK performance, and CPU performance. Lunacloud earned a score of 100 (on a scale of 100), while its high-profile competitors scored, on average only 26-40. It was also found to have a total throughput that was more stable than Amazon and roughly twice as fast as Rackspace. All these findings were made even more significant by the fact that Lunacloud is cheaper, in standard configurations, than either of the tested competitors, and this has led many observers to be optimistic about Lunacloud’s chances for future success. Last week, the company has announced a unique offer in the cloud industry, offering for free 1TB external traffic to its cloud servers and 2 free public IP’s per subscription.

Analysts are now projecting that Lunacloud will be one of the major players in the cloud computing industry, both in the areas of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service).

Today, Lunacloud has operational bases in 5 countries (soon to be 6), and provides services to an additional 63 countries. In addition to its central cloud nodes in Lisbon, Paris, and Moscow (earlier 2015), it also has branch locations in Lisbon, London, Barcelona, Paris and Moscow. Its international reach is made possible by a customer service network that operates simultaneously in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.

Lunacloud’s major market differentiator is its hourly price policy for cloud servers. Rather than charging a flat annual or monthly rate, the company offers clients the flexibility of an hourly rate without long-term contracts. Hourly rates are placed on a sliding scale based on the specific needs of the client, who has the option to customize the server’s RAM, CPU, and DISK resources as well as its operating system. In general, these hourly rates, calculated across the full period of use, add up to less than the average flat-rate cost for the same service, meaning most clients report that they save money with the hourly rate. Lunacloud also allows seeks to set itself apart by giving its customers full, autonomous control over scaling.

Cloud Servers, however, are just one branch of Lunacloud’s services. The company also offers Cloud Storage and Cloud Jelastic services. The cloud storage branch is fairly straightforward, offering a sliding-scale price based on GB/month and other storage specifications. Analogous to other cloud storage services, Lunacloud’s storage is a basic service for persistent object storage, S3-Compatible

The Cloud Jelastic branch of Lunacloud’s services targets developers and allows them to leave infrastructure management in someone else’s hands so that they con focus on developing their applications. The available infrastructures are highly adaptable based on the client’s specific needs, allowing Lunacloud to reach a broader range of potential customers. Cloud Jelastic’s latest version includes support for multiple nodes of different stacks, automatic horizontal scaling of app servers, and Marketplace expansion. Python and Node.js hosting also introduced to enhance Jelastic’s multi-language PaaS capabilities. The polyglot platform also supports popular programming languages, Java, PHP, and Ruby (.NET will be available soon).

Uber, the hugely popular ridesharing service currently valued at around $15b, has a lot going for it. Despite being banned in Germany, protested against in France, England and elsewhere, the company manages to grow at rates that seem exponential. What’s of particular interest is that they are providing cheaper services despite providing, allegedly, a higher reward to the drivers.

In a recent blog post, Uber reported that their ridesharing services in NYC have become much cheaper during the last few years. “Our fares this year are lower than ever, making Uber both the highest-quality and most affordable ride on the road” are their exact words. Notwithstanding the fact that “highest-quality” doesn’t necessarily follow from “our fares are lower than ever”, NYC is actually reported to be the only city in the US where taxis are cheaper than Uber rides. So who is telling the truth?

As concerns driver rewards, due to the growing demand and increasing availability of drivers, the service has become cheaper without compromising their compensation. This was achieved by the increased efficiency the sheer amount of new drivers created, meaning there’s less idle time and pickups are faster. All this, coupled with ‘surge time’ price peaks, could make their assertions more tangible than a mere claim. However, Uber’s activities in other cities don’t paint such a rosy picture.

How well-off are the drivers?

Upon entering new locations, or when having territorial clashes with Lyft, Uber generously subsidizes riders and drivers alike. For example, even though San Francisco Uber users were offered 15 per cent off during the summer, the drivers didn’t experience any wage cuts because the company paid them more than they earned.

However, the honeymoon seems to be over. Drivers have recently seen their hourly rates cut for about 25%, and commissions for new drivers are at an unprecedented 25 per cent in San Francisco. The company’s ads confirm it: whereas previously they advertised that drivers can earn up to $35 an hour, now that figure has shrunk to $18. Incidentally, that’s a hefty $6 below the median US hourly wage.

Don’t misunderstand, Uber is definitely valuable. The company offers a competitive service that people appreciate, like and use. Plus, it seems that it’s merely a matter of time before the legal issues are solved, because the service is too, well, popular for it to be banned entirely.

It’s just that, as there’s a lot of money involved, things are bound to get ugly as everyone fights for their cut. So far, we can see that Uber isn’t afraid to antagonize their second most valuable resource, the drivers. But that’s their own problem, as long as there still are people who want the job, right?

There is absolutely no doubt migrating a section of your IT assets, non-core business processes or the entire spectrum of business systems to the cloud makes immense sense. There are plenty of business benefits linked to cloud computing; most astute businesses are using cloud computing in some capacity or other and if you aren’t doing the same, you are missing out big time.

However, a move to the cloud must be backed by a comprehensive understanding of cloud technology, the market, your needs and what you want to achieve with cloud adoption. Deciding to move business assets and data to the cloud shouldn’t be a half-baked decision. It needs to be well-thought out so that you are able to achieve your goals without any problems whatsoever.

There are also certain pitfalls you need to keep in mind when you are thinking of migrating applications to the cloud. These are the kind of mistakes that can prove very costly in the long run, and turn your cloud move into an unmitigated disaster.

So, let’s take a look at five such mistakes:

Not choosing the Right Cloud Providers

Not all cloud providers are the same when it comes to reliability, scalability, connectivity, security and support. Research the market thoroughly before zeroing in on the cloud provider you believe is perfect for your needs. Choosing to go with one of the top cloud services providers is a good idea as the big players in this field will not only offer you the best prices but a wholly satisfying services portfolio as well. A word of warning – don’t get sucked into a service-level agreement without going through the agreement in detail. Avoid signing up for a service that you are not 100% happy with.

Another thing – you might come across a cloud player who is offering services for bottom of the barrel rates. Don’t just get attracted to the price; make sure the provider meets the highest standards of security compliance and offers the kind of elasticity and support you need. You don’t want to end up in a situation where your data gets compromised and the service is not to your liking.

This is why choosing the right service provider is an absolute must.

Not Choosing the Right Delivery Model

What do you want to use cloud computing for? This is the question that needs to be answered threadbare. Inability to get a perfect understanding of your needs and requirements might see you choosing a delivery model that is not suited for your needs; as can be imagined this results in a failure to reap the benefits of the cloud.

If you want to affordably implement complex solutions like Human Resource Management (HRM), Management Information Systems (MIS) etc., you will need to pick Software as a Service rather than Platform as a Service. On the other hand, if you want to outsource complete infrastructure to support your business operations, Infrastructure as a Service will be a perfect choice. Making the wrong choice will deliver diminishing returns or no returns at all.

Wrong Cloud Environment

What if you want to maintain complete control over the cloud and want greater levels of security and control? This is non-negotiable because your business is operating in a domain where the management, control and protection of data are of paramount importance. Now think of a situation where you decide to deploy some sensitive processes to the public cloud. The fact that such clouds are managed by third party providers means you will have to relinquish control. In this particular case, you have made a big mistake in choosing the public cloud; a better choice would have been a private cloud.

In case you are ok surrendering control of non-critical processes, and want to maintain control of the business critical processes, you could pick the hybrid cloud.

Picking the right cloud environment is therefore very important. In a worst case scenario, the wrong environment can lead to your sensitive data passing into unauthorized hands.

Not Planning for Risks

Depending on cloud providers for running your applications or for data storage and trusting their security, maintenance and support structure is all well and good, but what happens if and when things go wrong. You need to plan for the unexpected before moving to the Cloud. For e.g. what happens if an unauthorized party breaches the cloud. What happens to your data then? How soon can this breach be plugged? In such cases, will the personnel administering the cloud at the service provider’s end be able to see your data? What happens if there are technical problems? Does your business have a system in place where it can still access necessary data?

You might think such situations are in the realms of conjecture and can never happen. But, they can. It will be a good idea to plan for them so that you have a solution on hand if and when things go wrong. For this to happen, you not only need to thoroughly assess the risks associated with the cloud but find a solution for the same.

Not Having Cloud Expertise

This is another mistake that a business mustn’t make. While your third party providers have all the experience and expertise needed to ensure their cloud services run smoothly, you still need in-house technical expertise to make sure your use of the cloud is able to deliver the returns you are looking for. Also, somebody with the requisite knowledge of cloud technology can help you put in place solutions for the risks we discussed in the earlier point. You need a person/team that can implement your business’s cloud strategy for you and ensure it is optimally managed and controlled. This is how you can maximize the potential of the cloud for business benefit.

Conclusion

The idea is to make informed decisions when you decide to move applications/processes/data/IT assets to the cloud. Know everything there is to know about cloud technology, its deliverables, risks and the migration process before you actually get started on the whole exercise. This will help you take the right decisions and maximize your benefits from the cloud.

Paper or plastic? Which form of payment do we use the most? A Federal Reserve study reveals cash still accounts for 40% of all transactions, but credit cards surprisingly only command 17% of total transactions. Debit card payments makeup a quarter of total transactions, showing that even in 2014, cash is still king. The same Federal Reserve study shows electronic payments account for the highest value transactions, representing 27% of the value of all transactions across payment types, and over 30% of all transactions worth $100 USD or more are made with electronic or digital payment.

As consumers have become more aware of the benefits of digital payments, startups and tech producers have been swift in their production and delivery of digital payment products to the market. The digital credit card will make our wallets thinner, perhaps even make them obsolete, and facilitate electronic transactions at the point-of-sale; three electronic payment solutions have made their way to the forefront:

Payment Solutions

But which of these digital credit card alternatives will make its way into consumers’ wallets? One of the consolidated physical options, or the all-digital, cloud-based direction Apple has taken with Apple Pay?

With Coin, Plastc and Apple Pay, users can connect all of their ATM, debit, credit, (and in some cases gift) cards to the device, allowing for seamless transactions at the point of sale. With their payments connected, consumers can change the form of payment from the device as needed. Coin, Plastc and Apple Pay produce transaction reports for users via mobile apps and email receipts, affording record management with a log of all purchases made.

Coin and Plastc both look and function like traditional credit cards, processing transactions with the “swiping” motion. Both can also complete transactions by “passing” over or “tapping” with swipeless payment technologies like Near-Field Communications (NFC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

Without testing the product, it appears that Plastc stands superior to Coin, storing up to 20 cards versus Coin’s 8-card storage capacity. Plastc also displays full card information on its E link strip across the front of the card, whereas Coin can only display basic information on its small LED screen. Apple Pay, however, is functions as part of the Passport app in the iPhone 6’s iOS 8 operating system, rather than using a physical medium to substitute for the cards. It only has the capability to complete swipeless transactions with NFC or RFID technologies, unlike Coin and Plastc.

Apple Pay has the advantage of using a cloud-based platform for its storage – you can link your credit card and bank account information using the Passport app on your iPhone 6 or 6+, and instantly use Apple Pay using that same card. Also, there is no purchase required, as with Coin or Plastc – all that is required is one of the newest Apple smartphones.

Security remains the largest concern for all three digital payment options, as consumers look for the safest payment methods available. Plastc and Coin can both be connected to a user’s smartphone, alert the user when the card and phone are “too far” apart. By 2015, all credit cards in the U.S. will be required to have new security technology called the Eurocard Mastercard Visa chip (EMV) as standard. This chip incorporates a PIN technology that makes credit card transactions safer. Plastc and Apple Pay will come to the market with the EMV standard, but Coin has delayed its August 2014 product launch to Spring 2015 as its producers look to integrate it to the new EMV standard. All in all, it seems that these three products will likely be about the same in terms of safety for the consumer. However, with Apple Pay, there remains a question of security in their cloud services. If you do not have the utmost confidence in Apple’s iCloud security, then Apple Pay may not be the most prudent choice for linking to your bank account.

If you are looking for the best all-around option that incorporates as many aspects of the new payment technologies, then Plastc stands out as the most versatile competitor, incorporating contactless NFC technology as well as the standard swipe-to-pay capability. However, if you are looking to taking your payments fully digital and slim down your wallet, then Apple Pay is likely the best choice for you.

The Internet of Things – As Easy as Child’s Play

Google, Apple, Samsung and Amazon – the leading tech companies of the world would have you believe that designing devices and software for the internet of things is technically challenging, expensive, and requires great expertise. How else could they justify charging some of the sky-high prices for their latest products?

A twenty three year old is now challenging that notion with ‘SAM’ – dubbed as being the ‘lego of the internet’. Its aim is to offer an electronics kit made up of wireless, rechargeable, Bluetooth-connected modules that enable kids – along with anyone else without coding knowledge – to build everything from smart doorbells to intelligent home appliances.

Its developer – an entrepreneur called Joachim Horn – hopes to encourage budding engineers and inventors to create games, products and apps for the ‘Internet of Things’, where everyday objects can send and receive data through the web. “I was always scared of the dark magic of electrical engineering,” he said. “Stuff never works, there’s always a bug, and you can’t duct tape it into correctness… I wanted to find a way to make it fun for people to learn circuitry and coding. [I wanted to build a] human-centred model that would be easy to use and that taught you while you worked with it”.

By using crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, Horn has easily smashed his £50,000 target, eventually closing with 817 backers and £125,546 when the investment window closed. He plans to use the raised capital to make SAM networks accessible from smartphone, and design more aesthetically pleasing casings for the components. Ultimately he hopes to add another round of funding that will be in the region of £1 million – thus allowing him to develop more advanced components such as accelerometers, LCD screens, and camera modules.

Currently SAM is only three months old, and while Horn thinks it will help “level the playing field” to allow more people and start-ups to enter the sector with low levels of investment, easy prototypes, and increased autonomy, it has already seen some impressive products developed by enthusiasts and early adopters.

An eight-year-old used the SAM app, two motors, and three proximity sensors to build a self-driven car that moves round his room and dodges obstacles, a British man in a long distance relationship with a woman in Rome made a mailbox flag that is raised whenever he gets an email from her, and SAMs were used to create glasses that tell a blind person where to walk to depending on their surroundings.

Given how much can be designed and stylised with Lego, the possibilities for SAM appear endless at this stage. What do you think? What would you design if you had a SAM kit? Let us know in the comments below.

Painting With APIs

APIs or application programming interfaces of popular services are used by numerous startups to bring valuable services to the general public. API websites such asProgrammableWeb is one of the more popular sites offering a variety of plugins and mashup examples.

Companies such as Facebook, Foursquare and the Google’s API explorer share data with programmers, data that becomes all but the fabric of apps which can do some pretty amazing things. By combining various datasets with user input, a new killer app can provide better personalization and enhanced user experience.

There is, of course, a discrepancy between what user data is provided by an API and what the data holder actually has in store. For example, Facebook seems quite democratic in terms of providing user data – users can control what data gets shared, after all – whereas other hoarders (especially e-stores) are rather possessive of their data. Facebook’s API is, however, inevitably of a limited scale as unlike for Twitter, most of their data (like the vast majority of status updates) isn’t public. Publicly available data serves for grandiose, location-spanning projects like CityBeat, which attempts to map ‘the heartbeat’ of the city via social media updates and maps.

As for combining data, there’s a lot to tell for projects like DontEat.at that warns FourSquare users if a NYC restaurant they’ve checked in at has been flagged for possible health code violations. Here the app merges data from two ‘locations’, that is, FourSquare and a list maintained by the authorities, giving people better odds against food poisoning. Such projects showcase creative use of data and are of real use to the public.

The best results are, of course, gained when data is abundant. Such is the case for NeighborhoodScout, which aggregates Census data and other sources, visualizing with the help of Google Maps, in order to bring neighborhood data like crime rates, property prices, and much more to those wishing to relocate.

Other apps are more fun-oriented. Quizzes, personality readers and the likes don’t really influence people’s decisions, or, well, anything (except perhaps their friends’ opinion of them), but they do make good filler for the time that should be spent working.

Conclusion

There is inherent tension between the three parties involved. The big hosts want to benefit from their data, not just share it. Developers naturally want to mine the vast data archives to come up with ever crazier killer apps. Users, however, are only likely to want to share their data only if they see a tangible payoff, otherwise they’re mostly privacy advocates. There isn’t a simple solution, but it can very well be argued that the data hosts should be willing to provide user-consented access to data they are already using themselves.

The way we communicate has changed drastically since the advent of the web, and that applies to communication in any language, with or without a written script. For example, video calls, which were once the subject matter of sci-fi movies, are now made by millions every day. Innovations in this area are still springing up — take Talko, a very recent startup that brings teams and individuals together with mixed-media group calls. In short, we use language in situations and ways unprecedented in history.

But what about acquiring a language? Has the way we learn changed much, or at all? Study materials have become abundant and free, but a typical language course in 1950 didn’t look much different from the university standard today. On the flip side, though, there are language learning apps like Duolingo (and perhaps a few others) to take into account as they try to change the age-old process.

Duolingo and Big Data

Duolingo is an app that offers to learn a number of languages for free. It was founded by Luis von Ahn who stands behind the famous CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA technologies. Now the app has over 30 million registered users that learn one or more of the nine languages available on the website, and the efficiency of the app has been proved by an independent study.

Instead of displaying of in-app advertisements for revenues, Duolingo has language learners translate documents and news articles, most notably for Buzzfeed and CNN, on a contract basis. The project itself has grown to the point where they have handed much control over to volunteers who create language courses themselves.

Duolingo’s data-driven approach separates them from the rest. Due to users’ successes and failures being constantly recorded, charted and mapped, they have access to accurate and actionable data. For example, the developers know how many people have given up on learning and then try to lower that number with small changes. In the case of learning English for Spanish natives, for example, they noticed that the English “it” causes them problems, and thus it was subsequently moved to a later part of the course.

Duolingo are also in a position where they can smooth the process continuously with smaller segments of their huge database with A/B testing, refining the language acquisition process. They can also measure and upgrade the efficiency methodology: flashcards with pictures intuitively work better, but only they have access to data to gain bulletproof insights about the way we learn. Sadly, not that much is available on the topic at the company blog.

The largest problem with such courses, as with all online education, is that completion rates are incredibly low. The Duolingo app does a lot of handholding to counter that, but even if the method is very effective, sometimes the better part of the motivation comes from shelling out a few hundred for an offline course.

The idea of providing software to customers for a fee without the need for investments in IT infrastructure or staff has been around for decades. In the 1970s it was called Timesharing. Back then, companies utilized Timesharing services as their primary source of IT applications or as an extension of in-house IT applications, thereby avoiding additional infrastructure investments. Today, companies are considering what’s known as Software as a Service, or SaaS, for the same reasons. However today’s SaaS technology is very different from the Timesharing technology of decades ago. For one thing, Timesharing providers would dictate to their clients what communications protocols and user devices could be utilized. SaaS providers today utilize standard Internet communications protocols and permit connection from virtually any device with a web browser.

Whether looking to a SaaS solution to provide a primary computing environment or extend an existing one, the potential SaaS customer will need to select two suppliers. The first is the provider of the infrastructure in which the application software and databases will be hosted; the second is the provider of the application software to be hosted and used.

In selecting both vendors, the potential customer should ask each three important questions.

Question #1: What are the vendors’ underlying technologies?

There are two basic underlying technology architectures utilized by providers of SaaS services. One is a “multi-tenant” configuration, in which a single copy of the application and database software is installed on a server and used by multiple customers; the other is a “virtualization” model, in which a separate copy of the operating system, application software and database software is installed for each customer on a “virtual” server that may physically be on a single server or array of servers.

One configuration/architecture is not better than the other. They’re just different, with different advantages and risks. Since multitenant SaaS services are “sharing” software with multiple customers, generally only one copy (and thus one license) of the software components (Operating system, application software, database software, etc.) needs to be acquired. On the other hand because multiple customers are utilizing the same software and database, the proper configuration of security software is critically important and yet more difficult to accomplish. Under a Virtualization SaaS model, each customer’s “virtual” server has the necessary software components installed. This arrangement can simplify security set up, but increases costs since generally multiple software licenses must be acquired for each customer.

In terms of software maintenance, a multitenant configuration requires that new software or updates only be applied once in order to be used by all customers. However, the process of maintaining customer specific software customizations or configuration parameters can be very complicated, time consuming, and difficult to control, while in a Virtualization SaaS model software upgrades will need to be applied to each virtual server environment. Yet because each customer has their own, separate copy of software, customizations, and customer specific parameters are easier to control and maintain.

Question #2: What are the pricing options and terms?

Most SaaS services are priced on a subscription basis, in which the customer pays a fee annually or monthly. The basis for that fee varies widely from one provider to another. Some pricing schemes are based on total number of users, others on users per software module, while still others are more complex with categories of users and groupings of modules.

Question #3: What are the vendors’ capabilities and long-term direction?

Both the SaaS service provider and the software provider should have a track record of growth and financial stability. SaaS usage is expected to grow significantly. Service providers must have the financial strength and technical resources to maintain and grow their infrastructure in response to increased demand. Likewise, SaaS software providers need to add new functionality to their products to keep pace with changing business conditions.

Even when these questions are asked and answered, a choice will need to be made. One way to simplify that decision may seem counter intuitive: Select the software vendor first. Some software vendor solutions may only support a multi-tenant or virtualization configuration, which limits the choice of potential providers. It would be better to look for, and select, a software vendor that can support either architecture, thereby allowing the choice of SaaS provider to be made solely on the merits of the vendor’s capabilities and sustainability. Finally, while pricing should not be the sole selection criteria, it is an important one. Select a vendor with a straightforward, all-inclusive pricing arrangement, one that allows any user access to any module and allows users to be added easily.

Obviously, you hope, and in fact plan, for your business to grow. The right SaaS provider can help support that growth with robust IT capabilities at a reasonable cost. The right cloud accounting software in a SaaS environment can support and automate your business processes now and as your business grows. The right vendor will have the software features you need today and the financial strength and technology vision to provide the solutions you will need tomorrow.

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